Review of The Caine Mutiny (1954) by Gee P — 01 Jan 2010

I am sure I had seen snippets of The Caine Mutiny, probably when my mom would watch those Saturday afternoon movie affairs back in the 70s. And I know this is regarded as a great movie, with Oscar-worthy performances by a gaggle of household names. But after sitting through it from start to finish for the first time, I'm not quite sure what all the hoopla was about.

We follow Ensign Willis Keith, played by Robert Francis, from his graduation, and on to his first assignment, the minesweeper Caine. He thinks his first commanding officer is bad, until his second one arrives. That would be the thoroughly paranoid and apparently gun-shy Captain Queeg, played wonderfully by Humphrey Bogart.

The rest of the cast, er, crew, slowly become aware of Queeg's apparent mental condition through a number of incidences, among them the "yellow stain" affair, and the case of the missing strawberries. All of this eventually leads his officers to remove him from command during a typhoon, which is the first time his mental state could actually get them all killed.

The movie wraps up with a trial on the mutiny charges, and then an emotional encounter between the defense lawyer, played expertly by Jose Ferrer, and the officers of the Caine, sans Queeg.

Most of the film is interesting enough, and it is quite fun watching Bogart pull of his paranoid, obsessive character. And the final scene provides an excellent editorial on the entire affair, thanks to great performances by Ferrer and the esteemed Fred McMurray. But the trial, aside from Bogart?s great meltdown, is rather silly. Also, I never quite figured out the whole romance angle that was provided for our lead, Ensign Keith, as well as the relationship he had with his doting mother. Francis, in fact, is rather weak and robotic throughout.

Solid performances by Ferrer, Bogart, and McMurray make this film memorable, especially the aforementioned meltdown scene, and the champaign-tossing finale. But the shortcomings are too significant for me to consider this as nothing more than a pretty good naval saga with a few very good scenes.